He's the president of the California State Sheriffs’ Association. In that role he makes half witted remarks all the time. I hear about them because he's fairly close to where I live. What he says and does shows up in our local news papers.

I don't get down that far south very often but when I do I treat the area as if I were driving around in the State of Utah. That's what it's like, uptight Utah.

this is interesting in that these teachers are concerned about those new teachers coming after them. been sorely missing from modern times and lack of it has been a huge source of the growing security inequality.

...........KEA opposes the pension reform, in which new hires will have to enter a hybrid cash balance plan, which differs from a traditional pension, and would limit new sick days that teachers can put toward their retirement. It also wants the state legislators to override Bevin's veto of a budget bill and a revenue bill, with Winkler saying if these two bills don't pass, "this is very bad news for public education."...........

A Rochester Hills man on Thursday shot at a teenager who was knocking on his door to ask for directions.

Officials with the Oakland County Sheriff's Office said 14-year-old Brennan Walker missed the bus in the morning so he started walking to school. He got lost and stopped at a home on South Christian Hills Drive to ask for directions. Walker knocked at the front door.

"I knocked on the door, stepped back, knocked, stepped back and then a lady came downstairs yelling at me," he said. "She asked me, 'Why are you trying to break into my house?' and I told her, no, I was just looking for directions to Rochester High."

When a man came down the stairs with a shotgun, Walker started running.

"I turned back and saw him aiming at me," he said.

The safety was engaged, but the homeowner was eventually able to fire a shot as Walker ran away, authorities said.

"That's just completely unacceptable on every level. I don't know how you.............

Grimes had been driving about 35 mph on an ATV when Bessner — a passenger in a moving patrol car — fired his stun gun at the teen during a chase on Detroit’s east side.

Grimes slammed into the back of a parked truck and flew off his ATV. The impact of the crash ripped gashes into his forehead, both cheeks and upper lip and dislocated his skull. Doctors pronounced him dead on arrival at St. John Hospital.

Bessner, who resigned from his job amid a criminal investigation, has been charged with murder.

To better understand what happened the evening of Aug. 26, the Free Press used the Michigan Freedom of Information Act to request extensive records related to the crash. It received almost 11 hours of footage captured by cameras mounted in patrol cars, on nearby businesses and worn by Detroit Police officers, who also responded to the incident.

The Free Press also obtained almost 16 hours of audio recordings from police radios and phones as well as more than 600 pages of documents and more than 500 photos. Michigan State Police took six months to provide those records, which were heavily redacted. For example, State Police withheld all footage captured from the camera in Bessner's squad car, and also blurred the video of Grimes.

Still, the video and audio files that were turned over by MSP show elements of the chase and its aftermath from dozens of angles and perspectives with candid, real-time comments provided by police officers seeing the events unfold in front of them.

Seen and heard in the materials are:

Security camera video showing the final seconds of the chase

Emergency lights on top of the patrol car start flashing 24 seconds after the crash

Bessner acknowledging using the stun gun on Grimes as he rode the ATV

Unfiltered talk from officers including one who says "Don't run from the State Police, you'll get fucked up." Communities across the nation are...................

That is how authorities described a grown man firing a shotgun at a 14-year-old who knocked on his door to ask for directions to school.

That is how authorities described the denouement of the incident last Thursday when 14-year-old Brennan Walker, who had missed his bus and tried to walk to Rochester High, got lost and approached a random door to ask for help.

Rather than aid, he got Jeff Ziegler, a 53-year-old retired firefighter, chasing him down the street and firing a 12-gauge shotgun at him — for daring to knock on his door, according to police reports.

Ziegler’s wife said she and her husband thought a black kid knocking on the door and asking for help was a black man trying to rob their house.

Yep, robbers usually stand unarmed at your door asking for help when they want to take your silverware.

Ziegler — if the police report is accurate and there’s no reason to doubt it — was no longer protecting his property when he chased a kid down the street and shot at him.

Had he hit Brennan, that child would have lain nowhere near his home.

But Ziegler missed, according to police reports and the fact Brennan made it home to his mother. So the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department claims no one was injured in the incident.

That is a lie.

Brennan was injured. Imagine what being chased by a racist with a gun does to the psyche of a young boy — and to all of his friends who now live with the thought of what happened to him and the terror of what could happen to them.

Rochester Hills was injured. Once again, all it takes is one knucklehead doing something stupid, according to police reports, to lead people with big brushes to paint the entire city as a racist enclave where people shoot black boys who approach their doors.

Records the Free Press obtained under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act show Bessner was involved in 40 "use of force" incidents in less than four years, including one just three days before Grimes’ Aug. 26 death.

Bessner also had been disciplined previously for misusing his Taser, a device that delivers an electrical shock to temporarily immobilize its target.

“It doesn’t sound like he should be a police officer. ... Those are totally inappropriate behaviors," said Geoff Alpert, a professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina who has researched police pursuits for more than 30 years.

Video, which the Free Press also received in its records request to State Police, appears to show the overhead emergency lights on Bessner’s vehicle turned on after Grimes slammed his ATV into a parked truck on Rossini near Gratiot.

“If you hit the driver (with the Taser), you’ve now disrupted all of his muscular responses and he can’t drive; he can’t steer. He’s going to crash," Alpert said. “I don’t know what other response you’d expect.”

Dennis Kenney, a former police officer who has studied pursuits and is a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said he has never heard of an officer tasing someone from a moving vehicle...............

chasing people without the police lights or dashcam going puts them in the position if it ends in a crash they can pretend they werent there. was a case recently you get a report of a high speed crash in the middle of the night turned out it was a police chase.

...........The Michigan Chamber of Commerce's Richard Studley, who does not particularly care about cloaking things, told the Gongwer news service that too many people have obtained insurance since the state's Medicaid expansion was passed, and that employers don't like that. (Employers, you might want to give Studley a call, because I have more faith in your compassion than he does.) Guidance from the administration of President Donald Trump gives states the option to impose such a requirement, for the first time in the program's history.

The bill's sponsor, Sen. Mike Shirkey, R-Clark Lake, says this isn't about money. A state Senate Fiscal Agency analysis estimates it would cost $20 million to $30 million to implement and administer, and that any savings would likely be "slight."

This is a nasty little piece of legislation, indulging in the most destructive stereotypes about poverty, the notion that folks who receive benefits are lazy jerks who'd rather exploit the system than find a job.

Nearly 50% of enrollees in the Healthy Michigan expansion do work, a 2017 study conducted by University of Michigan researchers found. Of the rest, 5% were students, 4.5% were homemakers, 11% said they were unable to work and 2.5% were retired. Just 27.6% were considered to be out of work, and three-quarters of those say they're living with a chronic physical condition like diabetes, asthma or cancer, or a mental health condition — in other words, taking away health-care coverage means they're less likely to find work.

"Medicaid recipients who are working would have to proceed through another bureaucratic hoop to maintain coverage, while they have health care needs they’re currently seeing us for," said Paul Propson, CEO of Covenant Community Care in Detroit, a primary health care provider that sees 20,000 patients with Medicaid benefits or no insurance coverage each year...........

By several measures, the United States is in a period of historic economic growth and prosperity. Major stock market indices have hit record highs, unemployment is at a near two-decade low, and we are in the midst of what may prove to be the longest period of sustained GDP growth in U.S. history.

However, amid all the good news, the poverty rate is on the rise, and several U.S. cities are becoming increasingly geographically and socially segregated by income.

The poverty level in the continental United States is set at annual income of $25,100 for a family of four, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The share of Americans living below that income threshold climbed from 12.7% to 14.2% between 2010 and 2016. As poverty has affected more Americans, it has also has become more geographically concentrated. The number of neighborhoods nationwide in which 40% or more of the population lives in poverty climbed by 21.7% over the same period.

This increased concentration of poverty is far more pronounced in certain metropolitan areas. The share of poor residents living in extremely poor neighborhoods — defined as those with a poverty rate of at least 40% — climbed by more than 3.5 percentage points in 20 metro areas in the last six years.

Such high-poverty neighborhoods are often characterized by high crime rates, low educational attainment rates, and high unemployment. Partially as a result, those living in these extremely poor neighborhoods are at a greatly reduced likelihood of success and upward economic mobility.

Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 24/7 Wall St. compared the percentage point change in concentrated poverty rates in U.S. metro areas between 2010 and 2016 to identify the cities where concentrated poverty is increasing most. The cities on this list span the United States geographically, from...........

.........A grandmother in Pontiac was injured Monday when a stray bullet went through her window while she was doing the dishes inside her home.

Neighbors said several people were firing shots just outside the 64-year-old woman's home when she was struck in the arm. Family members said they heard shots in the distance that kept getting louder until a bullet came through a window.

"It was real scary, and all I knew was that I had been hit and I saw blood going everywhere," Tommie Howard said............

............Howard said she's scared even when she's inside her home.

"I don't even know whether to stand up or get down and crawl through the house because you never know when it's going to happen," Howard said.

Michigan Sen. Wayne Schmidt (R-Traverse City) represents Cheybogan County, where unemployment is high, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics: around 20.9% in February. Schmidt also represents Chippewa County, where unemployment was about 10.5% that month.

But unlike Medicaid recipients elsewhere in Michigan, the residents Schmidt represents are unlikely to be harmed by SB 897, a piece of legislation the senator co-sponsored. Approved by the state Senate on party lines last week, the bill would require recipients of Medicaid to prove they work 30 hours a week to retain their health-care coverage.

That 2.5 million Michiganders — nearly a quarter of our state's population —receive health care coverage through traditional Medicaid or the Healthy Michigan Medicaid expansion, and that 60% of adult Medicaid recipients who aren't disabled are working, and that requiring working adults who live in poverty to document what may be sporadic or seasonal work hours presents a significant hardship, don't seem to make no nevermind to Schmidt and his Republican colleagues in the state Senate.

Because although HB 897 threatens to end Medicaid benefits for hundreds of thousands living elsewhere in the state, it includes exemptions for people who live in counties with an unemployment rate of more than 8.5%, like the ones Schmidt represents.

Live in Detroit? You're out of luck.

The city's unemployment rate is higher than 8.5%, but the unemployment rate in surrounding Wayne County is just 5.5% — meaning Detroiters living in poverty, with a dysfunctional transit system that makes it harder to reach good-paying jobs, won't qualify for that exemption. The same is true in Flint and the state's other struggling cities.

Get that? Rural residents of up-north counties with high unemployment are protected; urban Michiganders who live in high-unemployment cities in more prosperous counties are left to twist.

This is what's called "political cover." It's also one of the ways legislators skillfully pit urban and rural Michiganders with common interests against each other. ................

MACKINAC ISLAND – Detroit children have been treated as political pawns amid years of continued low performance and a lack of growth and opportunities, according to Detroit schools superintendent Nikolai Vitti, who said during a panel discussion Thursday that it has been driven partially by racism.

"There is a racist element to what has happened," said Vitti, who participated in a panel, Detroit's New Era of Collaboration on Education, moderated by Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley, during the Mackinac Policy Conference. "Children in Detroit have been treated like second-class citizens. When a system is allowed to be run over a decade by individuals that had no track record of education reform ... no governance structure, years and years of low performance, a lack of growth, drop in enrollment, that would never, ever happen in any white suburban district in this country."

Vitti said race has continued to be an underlying factor in the educational sphere, in terms of what opportunities are afforded.

"We see signs of that in Flint, we saw signs of that in New Orleans after the flood, we have multiple examples of this," Vitti said. "...Let's get back to the root cause, which often is linked to race, linked to poverty and let's invest in the whole child regardless of that child's ZIP code, regardless of that child's race, and we'll actually see what children can accomplish."

Vitti said no one has seen yet the full scope of what Detroit children can accomplish.

"We've really never funded it (the Detroit Public Schools Community District) appropriately, provided the direct kind of support, and ensured that the right governance structure and leaders are in place to ensure the system moves forward in the direct benefit of children," Vitti said. "We have used Detroit and Detroit children as political, often, pawns and gamesmanship has happened ... in this state."..........

........The Free Press’ Lori Higgins reported the art and music boost in a budget she said was “a significant departure from years past, when the district — while under state-appointed emergency management — was frequently in a cut mode.”

But what is significant about the change that will enhance the education of children across the city is how Vitti is doing it — by making art and music the priority rather than contracts for adults.

“We are funding a music or art teacher in every one of our schools from elementary to middle to high through our own budget, not relying on private philanthropy,” he said.

Vitti did it by focusing on teaching in a 21st-Century school district that must cater to students who need more of everything rather than cater to adults who once relied on the district for full-time work as vendors, contractors and consultants.

No more.

And it's a big change.

Vitti said he’s even tearing up contracts, not just for art and music services, but for consultants to provide some wraparound services. For instance, he said, the district used to pay some outsiders to work with students on discipline issues and to provide “restorative” services for students and families.

Now, he said, he is putting a full-time dean in every school “to work with students who habitually make wrong decisions.”

If this victory is a sign of how Vitti is changing the district, then let’s hope it’s one of many victories to come..........

Detroit's rebound has brought a surge in new artisanal restaurants, renovated office space and $2,000-per-month loft apartments in the past five years.

It also has spawned hundreds of new employment opportunities in private security to watch over those businesses and their employees and patrons.

Many of these security jobs have gone to Detroit residents, extending economic benefits of the revitalization happening in the greater downtown — critics call it gentrification — to more individuals who live in the still-struggling neighborhoods.

The jobs do pay better than working fast food or some retail positions. The larger security firms also offer optional health care plans and opportunities to advance into managerial ranks.

Still, few are getting rich working downtown security. The pay at security firms typically starts at just above Michigan's $9.25 hourly minimum wage. (Wages are higher for armed guards.) And the relatively low wage ceiling for some positions can lead to high employee turnover, especially as the unemployment rate continues to fall.

Security contractors have been reluctant to significantly raise wages because they are under competitive pressure to keep costs low.

Detroit City Council President Pro Tem Mary Sheffield said she believes downtown security guards are underpaid and deserve at least $15 an hour.

"People are working these jobs and barely making ends meet," she said. "We see all the resurgence that's taken place in downtown, and they can't even afford to patronize and be a part of the revitalization."

A mix of armed and unarmed security guards now patrol some downtown streets on foot, bike and car. The guards also monitor construction sites, watch parked vehicles, stand inside the new Nike store and provide concierge-like services in the many newly restored buildings that were mostly vacant a few years ago.

Their presence is often credited for the enhanced sense of security felt by many Detroit workers, residents and visitors. While most downtown guards lack the legal authority to detain or make arrests, they can step in to prevent felonies and protect public safety.............

increased insecurity on both fronts, the obscure private authority roaming the streets and poverty wages depressing the community. the author of the article really did a good job sweetening the sourness of it though.

A home health care employee allegedly put a human resources representative in a choke hold and then stabbed her with a pen at a Troy company, according to a news report.

WXYZ-TV (Channel 7) is reporting that Sakyra Ellis, 28, of Redford Township had resigned from Custom Home Health and was turning in her company-issued equipment to HR.

Ellis returned a broken computer tablet and the HR representative reportedly said she would have to pay $500 to fix it, per company policy. According to Channel 7, Ellis then "became enraged" and attacked the HR rep, putting the woman in a choke hold and stabbing her in the left arm with a pen..............

wonder if a person working in home health care even makes $500 in a week or can afford to buy a tablet.

.............A study has shown that Detroit tax assessor's office, under Duggan's purview, overassessed the taxable value of at least 55 percent of Detroit homes as recently as 2015, leading to inflated tax bills that may have forced people from their homes unnecessarily. The city has since conducted a citywide reassessment of all properties in order to remedy the problem, but activists have called for reparations for those who they say wrongly lost their homes.

An estimated 1 in 4 Detroit properties were foreclosed between 2011 and 2015. The latest preliminary foreclosure data represents a return to pre-recession levels.

........The founder of Amazon.com, already the world's richest person, saw his net worth hit $150 billion for the first time Monday, which is about $55 billion more than the $95.5 billion that the Microsoft co-founder is currently worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. ........

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